


The Thing About Oysters

by novelogical (writingmonsters)



Category: Burnt (2015)
Genre: Falling In Love, First Kiss, Fluff without Plot, M/M, Oysters, The Oysters Are A Metaphor!!!, food is love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-28
Updated: 2019-06-28
Packaged: 2020-05-28 18:04:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19399510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingmonsters/pseuds/novelogical
Summary: He hardly has to look at his hands as he works the knife into the fissure of another clamped-tight mollusc, levering it apart. Without a word, Adam holds it out, the thin slice of shell hovering in the curve of Tony’s lower lip until he acquiesces -- as always -- letting Adam tip the cool, salt-water sliver down his throat.A million and one.There is something indescribably soft in the way Adam looks at him, in the approving smile he offers Tony.





	The Thing About Oysters

**Author's Note:**

> Am I about to propose "oysters as a metaphor" as a reason for writing this 3,000 word ramble of nonsense? Yes. Is it perfect? Yes. Just think - Adam's whole initial metamorphosis as a character is encompassed in the 'penance done' shucking a million oysters. And what are oysters commonly considered to be (whether this is true or no)? Aphrodisiacs. 
> 
> Guys. GUYS. Adam shucks a million oysters and then shows up on the doorstep of Tony's hotel and this is ABSOLUTELY A METAPHOR FOR DISCOVERING HIS SEXUALITY AND TRUE ROMANTIC LEANINGS AND HIS LOVE FOR TONY AND I HAVE A TALENT FOR OVERANALYZING THE SHIT OUT OF THINGS WHICH SERVED ME VERY WELL WHEN I WAS WRITING LIT PAPERS BACK IN THE DAY BUT NOW IS JUST A HAZARD.

In the shadows of the empty, half-lit restaurant, Adam leans across the table where Tony has installed himself and says with such conviction that Tony  _ almost _ believes him “you're the best maitre d' in Europe.” There is a fierceness in his eyes, a sober clarity Tony hasn’t seen in a long time. “My restaurant? It's gonna be the best in the world."

It very well could be.

Tony should know by now, nothing is impossible when it comes to Adam. With the likes of Adam Jones  _ everything _ is possible -- until it isn’t. He sucks in a breath; ribs burning, lungs starved for air, dizzy with the overwhelming sense of  _ Adam _ . Alive. Whole. Brilliant.

“I want you to talk to your father.”

Adam Jones has come back from the dead, full of fire and better than ever. Still the best at what he does. And he doesn’t ask -- never asks -- but fully expects that Tony will acquiesce, will help him see this through.

He says “we’ll see,” and Adam knows it means  _ yes _ .

Fuck. Tony has missed him.

Beaming -- that dazzlingly warm, thousand-watt smile -- Adam claps Tony on the shoulder, gives him an enthusiastic squeeze. “Knew I could count on you, Tones.” The confidence in his words belies the way the fist of dread around his stomach loosens.

It isn’t quite praise, but still Tony blushes, shrinking under the weight of Adam’s attention. He offers up a noncommittal noise when Adam squeezes the nape of his neck -- catches Tony’s heart between his fingers and squeezes that, too, in his steady grip. Everything in him yearns to lean into the touch; he lets himself indulge, just for a moment, in the familiarity of it. Calloused hands and a laugh he had never expected to hear again.

And, when Adam turns away, he finds the question slipping from his mouth. Traitorous; laced through with longing and old hurt. “Where did you go?”

“Huh?”

Tony, forever flustered -- flushing -- flicks the briefest of glances up into Adam’s face, like he would take the question back if he could. But, how many times had he wanted to write? To know that Adam was all right -- at least,  _ alive _ \-- to know just how many miles and kilometers and oceans had spread between them. 

“After Paris,” he clarifies, brushing imaginary crumbs from the table top. “Where did you go? I wanted to -- well.” Careful to cut himself off, afraid to reveal too much. He spreads his hands, unaware of the heart beating so transparently on his sleeves. “The way you left things, I wanted to help if I could. But, clearly, you have done okay.”

The silence that settles between them in the Langham’s empty dining room wavers, seeming to last an eternity. Suddenly, they are both on uncertain footing.

And, if it were anyone else -- Reece or Michel or Max -- Adam would be all bravado and sure confidence, but he has always let himself be honest with Tony. “Not at first.” He braces his hands on the nearest chair, shifting from foot to foot. The admission tastes bitter, tinged with guilt. “You saw me in Paris, Tony; I wasn’t anywhere close to ‘okay’.  _ Drunk, or stoned, or stoned or drunk _ , right? And, uh, drug dealers -- you know, coke doesn’t come cheap.”

Whatever Tony thinks, he listens in silence, all open face and knowing eyes; this is soul-bearing, not the time to pass judgment.

“I made it to Chicago.” Adam’s eyes wander the dining room shadows, picking out the fragments of his hazy memory. Vomiting in airport toilets. Dizzy and sweating his way through security. “You ever been in the O’Hare? Fucking nightmare. Somehow wound up in Atlanta and somewhere between there and New Orleans I figured I’d better clean my act up before I wound up dead in a gutter.”

The sort of fate that had plagued Tony’s dreams, had haunted him alone in his small Paris flat when he had thought too long about Adam and the empty space at Jean Luc’s pass. “How…?” 

“Oysters.” Adam has to laugh at the way Tony’s head snaps up, the bewildered scrunch of his eyebrows. “A million of ‘em.”

And, unexpectedly, self-consciousness tugs at his shoulders, draws him tighter into himself. He has never said it all out loud, has carried his salvation as weight strung around his ribs -- how to confess? How to explain it? 

“After the first thousand, I quit drinking. The next, I quit the coke. Then the heroin. And the weed. And then, I just kept going -- ‘if I can stay sober for another thousand oysters…’, ‘if I can make it to fifteen thousand, to thirty, to seventy-five…’” Adam shrugs. “Been clean two years, two weeks, and six days now.”

Tony has no idea what to say to that.

Sure that his silence can only mean disbelief, Adam straightens instantly, arms folded. Standoffish. “You want me to piss in a cup and prove it to you?”

“ _ No _ .” Tony pulls a face. “No, I believe you. Is just…”

“Yeah.”

Not such an easy thing -- trusting again, confronting the ghosts of the past.

But Adam has never been one to be deterred, not at nineteen staring down the greatest chef in Paris, and not now, making his appeal to the greatest maitre d’ in Europe with his blue eyes  _ burning _ . “Let me cook, Tony. You know I’m good -- you know  _ we’re _ good.”

Tony has never been able to deny Adam anything.

“Okay.” He nods, a sharp jerk of his chin and umber eyes sliding away. Considering. “Okay...  _ Oysters _ .  _ Voy a ser condenado _ .”

Well, I’ll be damned.

* * *

Adam counts oysters.

Tony counts days. Days until Adam relapses, until he runs, until this castle in the air he has built comes crashing down around them both. How long will it last this time?

He trusts Adam. Loves him. Has always had so much faith in the man -- and yet holds is breath through every mistake, every pitfall and fuckup and delay. Each time, it snags in his chest, catches at the back of his throat, and he has to wonder if this is it. If it will all shatter like plates hurled against the tile. Tony is not strong enough anymore to pick up the pieces; to spend late nights coaxing Adam through the highs and lows, forcing him to purge the contents of his stomach, easing him through the comedowns and the bad trips and the hangovers.

But, even through the worst of it, Adam -- battered, belligerent -- remains sober. Opening night falls apart. The Michelin men arrive. Michel dusts cayenne pepper into the dish and Adam, reeling, raging, bangs through the kitchen doors, disappearing out into the darkness.

Tony fears the worst.

In the morning, he is bruised. Bloodied. His voice is hoarse and there are heavy shadows beneath his bright blue eyes, but Adam Jones is as clear-headed as ever. Even if he is certain he has cost them both everything.

With the late morning sunlight slanting through the hotel curtains, Tony promises him that this is not the case. “There were no Michelin inspectors in London last night.” His voice shakes. Giddy with grief, with a sleepless twenty four hours, he can’t quite control his smile. “I called the number they used to book the reservation --”

Adam stares at him, uncomprehending, his eyes hollow, and Tony has to wonder: is he counting oysters still?  _ Ninety nine thousand nine hundred ninety seven, ninety nine thousand nine hundred ninety eight... _

“They are software salesman.”

_ Ninety nine thousand nine hundred ninety nine. _

“From Birmingham.”

_ One million. _

Adam collapses against him, shaking with relief when he folds Tony into the fierce, desperate embrace. Both of them dizzy, still not quite able to understand this reprieve. And Tony pretends he does not feel the tears, hot against his neck, when Adam shudders out a grateful breath, pressing his face into a slender shoulder.

“Hey,” Tony soothes, tracing gentle patterns between the jut of Adam’s shoulder blades. He will not fall apart. Somehow, he has always found the strength to keep them both standing. “We’ll be okay, yes? Everything is okay.”

And he is right; everything is okay.

The world keeps turning.

They work a hundred more services, smooth down their rough edges, and Adam declares the end of each night ‘perfection’. In the post-lunch lull, Tony ferries dirty dishes from tables -- stacked several high and balanced perfectly in his careful hands. Adam has relinquished the pass to Helene for the moment, retreating to the prep station with an knife and the day’s delivery of fresh, gritty-shelled oysters.

“You have  _ commis _ for this, Adam.” Tony watches as he flicks his wrist, gives an expert twist of the knife. 

The neatly halved shell goes in one direction, the slippery white meat in another. Adam shrugs. “It’s meditative. How’re we doing up front?” His eyes slide upwards, lingering, the weight of his gaze curling around Tony’s spine.  “Like sex?”

Max, a few feet away, snorts and shakes his head. They have all heard Adam’s diatribes on cooking -- impassioned speeches on the culinary experience.

_ It's like sex, _ he insists. _ It's like you're always headed to the same place, but you got to find new and dangerous way of getting there. _

Adam has always been all about the new and the dangerous.

Hyper-aware of the sudden heat that floods his face, a far too revealing flush that rushes from his collar to the tips of his ears, Tony swallows hard. “Yes,” he says, mouth dry, managing a smile that threatens to resolve itself into a grimace when his heart thumps hard against his chest. “Like sex.”

“Good.” Adam nods, all but croons his approval. “Good.”

Everything as it should be.

He hardly has to look at his hands as he works the knife into the fissure of another clamped-tight mollusc, levering it apart. Without a word, Adam holds it out, the thin slice of shell hovering in the curve of Tony’s lower lip until he acquiesces -- as always -- letting Adam tip the cool, salt-water sliver down his throat.

_ A million and one. _

There is something indescribably soft in the way Adam looks at him, in the approving smile he offers Tony before launching into his lecture all over again. “ _ A _ _ chef should strive to be consistent in experience, but in taste _ \--”

“Adam.” Tony holds up a hand, aggrieved, knowing all too well where Adam is headed with this. “Please. If you start talking about culinary orgasms again, I will have to kill you.”

“Okay,” Adam laughs, the faint crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes crinkling with wicked mirth. “Okay.”

Surely, that is the end of it.

“Are you opposed to discussing other types of orgasms?”

It  _ almost _ sounds like a proposition. Absolutely sinful, the way Adam quirks an eyebrow at him, absolutely mortifying, the way Tony’s heart drops to the bottom of his stomach. He manages a strangled attempt at sound, the whites of his eyes wide and round when he sucks in a breath, reaches into himself and offers Adam a sharp look, all sparks and spitfire. “With you? Yes.”

If he thought Adam were in any way genuine about it -- if he didn’t  _ know _ Adam and all his meaningless teasing and flirtation -- Tony is mortifingly aware that he would gladly do so much more than just ‘discuss’. But, if the odds of finding a pearl somewhere in Adam’s millions of oysters are one in twelve thousand, Tony expects that the odds of Adam falling in love with him are even less than that.

He doesn’t know quite what to think when Adam wanders into the cramped office an hour later, finds Tony having forgotten his contact lenses, nose-to-screen with the computer and peering irritably at fuzzy pixels that are meant to form words. Unwilling to look away, Tony is aware of Adam at the periphery, placing something on the corner of the desk, squeezing his shoulder before he goes out again without a word.

When he tears his eyes away from the blur of emails, there is a misshapen but unmistakable kernel of a pearl sat neatly atop his notepad. And, suddenly, he thinks that perhaps the odds have changed.

* * *

This time, they are ready for the Michelin men.

Everything happens fast -- a fork on the floor, a whirlwind service. Perfect. It has to be perfect. They cook. They serve. They hold their breath, scrub the kitchen clean, and pray that it was enough.

And then it is just Adam left, muttering and clattering and scratching out notes in the empty kitchen. Just Tony, perched on a stool at the corner of the pass, patiently tallying up the accounts. Both of them still too wired, still riding the highs and anxieties of the night, to consider leaving now -- letting it end.

“What d’you think?” Adam asks. Nearly midnight and he is still cooking, stirring pots and dusting on garnishes; he needs to be sure, has to walk himself one more time through the Michelin orders. “Did you see them -- how was it?”

Tony supposes Adam had been right, in a way, to compare dining experiences and sex -- but he thinks they must have very different perceptions of just what sex is like. Quick, sweaty transactions, all nerves and adrenaline and feeling certain afterwards that he will throw up. 

He says as much, couched in polite terms.

For a long time, Adam stares at him. Then, puzzled, a little bit stunned, he declares “Tony, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but it sounds like you’ve been having some pretty terrible sex.”

Sighing, Tony tosses another few receipts into his piles of chaotically organized accounting, scribbles a few zeroes on his scratch paper. “I think bending over to be fucked by Michelin will be the only sex I have -- terrible or no -- for a long time.”

Oh.

_ Fuck. _

Had he said that out loud?

Considering the way Adam stops short,  _ staring _ at him with a full serving spoon hovering halfway above the pass, dripping  _ jus  _ onto the stainless steel, the answer is ‘yes’. Tony stammers, his face hot and damningly scarlet, babbling out a tongue-tied, multilingual apology that Adam waves off with a wry look.

“C’mere.” He gestures Tony around the pass, offering him a fork as he turns his attention once more to the finished dishes before them. Oysters Rockefeller. 

Tony hesitates.

There is something in Adam’s eyes -- keen, far too focused on Tony -- that unnerves him slightly. He ducks his head, embarrassed to be the subject of such scrutiny, but still he plucks the fork from Adam’s fingers, swallows down a chewy bite. One of the Michelin diners had ordered this. 

“Thoughts?”

Lemon juice and herbs linger on his tongue. Tony tests the flavor of it, considering, even though he doesn’t have to. He already knows -- it’s perfection. There is an absolute certainty, a tenderness, to his words when he reassures Adam that there is no doubt in his mind. “You will get your third star.”

Adam picks at his own oysters, still worried over the presentation, over whether the lemon had overpowered the dish. And… something else on his mind, too. “Y’know,” Adam hums and the segue is far too casual to be anything but intentional. “All the way back to ancient Rome, people have believed oysters are a natural aphrodisiac.”

In an effort to cover up the sudden warmth that blooms in the pit of his stomach, the guilty leap of his heart, Tony swallows another mouthful and refuses to let his eyes drift back toward Adam. Taking desperate refuge in the culinary knowledge drilled into him as a young maitre d’, his ability to speak volumes about any dish, he shrugs off Adam’s words. “The same thing is said of chocolate -- it is  _ un cuento de viejas. _ What am I thinking of? Old wives’ tales.”

“You think so?” 

A quick glance. There is a strange look on Adam’s face, unreadable.

Tony’s eyes slide away again. Furious at the traitorous blush burning pink across his cheeks, he lifts and eyebrow and offers a pithy “at the risk of insulting your oysters, Adam, I fear they are not exactly high-ranking in my list of sexy foods.”

Adam cracks up. One long, hard arm reaches across the space between them to circle Tony’s slim shoulders, reeling him in until Tony can  _ feel _ the warmth of him, the way Adam’s body shakes with laughter. And -- before Tony even realizes what is happening -- Adam is leaning in, kissing him.

It’s a softer kiss than Tony could ever have imagined. Adam’s lips gentle against his own, chapped and curious, stubble prickling. And it is only his arms around Tony that keep him upright, hold him steady when Tony’s knees threaten to puddle, when his heart might just burst for all the agony and exquisite relief.

When Adam pulls away Tony wobbles, swaying on his feet as though he might chase the fleeting kiss. This close, Adam’s eyes are electric: sparkling and expectant and -- strange to see -- just a little bit shy. And Tony, shaken, with the ghost of Adam’s kiss tingling on his mouth, has no idea what to say or where to look. “Are you…?” There is a shiver of fear in his chest, a guarded wariness when he forces himself to stare up at Adam. “You gonna blame this on the oysters later?”

The way, the very first time he had kissed Tony when they had been so bright and young and foolish in Paris, Adam had blamed it on one too many drinks.

“No.” Adam’s voice cracks, barely more than a whisper when he traces the ridges of his knuckles along the soft curve of Tony’s cheek. Reverent. “No. Are you --?”

“ _ Adam _ .” A strange burst of courage, of brazen flirtation, and Tony lays feather-light fingertips against Adam’s lips. “There is no need to invent excuses,” he murmurs, watching Adam through his eyelashes “if you really want to kiss me.”

_ If you want to kiss me. _

What a thing to say out loud. 

“Tony?”

Little Tony holds his breath. “Yes?” 

“I really want to kiss you.”

He does.


End file.
